Are you using EPDM 2010? I believe you can use the new task feature to do just that. I just installed 2010 yesterday but I plan on trying this out in the next day or two and see how the Convert Task works. If you are using EPDM 2009 or older then there is no feature that I know of that will do this. You have to write custom code to handle this instead.

You can read about Tasks in Chapter 20 starting at page 213 of the EPDM 2010 Administration Guide

You're right, that tasks are not directly accessible from the Check In/ Check Out process. However, you could use the code generated by a task to help create an executable that is kicked off thru Dispatch at Check In.

Dispatch would definitely be the starting point you want to use, unless you can write your own add-in.

You could set-up the pdf to be created through Tasks, and create an inital state with an auto-transition to a second state in your workflow. The auto-transition kicks off the pdf, and since it happens automatically, users don't even realize the transition happened.

Thanks for the input guys. What the boss was wanting to do was for the pdf to keep in sync with the cad file when it was checked in at the end of the day. Sounds like we need somebody to write some code to do what he's after.

We do this currently in PDMWorkgroup. However, it is not easily doable in EPDM.

The only method that I know of is to create an add-in that has a hook to the post check-in Command Type which would then run and generate a PDF of the file being checked-in.

I would warn you though, that this should not be done without considering the ramifications. Creating a program that hooks into every file check-in could seriously bog down your user experience.

If you are doing this because of how it works in Workgroup I would take a step back and reconsider if it is absolutely necessary to have a PDF generated on check-in. Our comany went through the same thought process and found that it wasn't exactly necessary but nice.